Penguin 2.0 officially announced by google

The much awaited Penguin update is finally announced by Matt Cutts. In his blog post, Cutts has given some detail about this Penguin update.

Penguin 2.0 rolled out on wednesday(22/5/2013), about 2.3% English Search Queries were affected by this next generation update. He has also mentioned that its an Algorithm update, not just a data refresh, so you can expect lot more in upcoming days.

Check out Cutts in this video to know more about Penguin 2.0 and upcoming updates from Google.

Let us know if you’ve seen any significant changes, or if the update has helped or hurt your traffic/rankings in the comments.

Internal links with the same anchor text

As we all are aware about Google Penguin update. Penguin keeps an eye on Anchor text spamming. Every SEO’s are now worried about their Anchor text. Here is a question, Will multiple internal links with the same anchor text hurt a site’s ranking?

Here is an answer from Google’s web-spam chief  Matt Cutts

Please share your thoughts on Internal Links with same anchor text.

Google Panda Update Version #24

Google panda update #24

 

Finally after so much of discussion in forums and webmaster’s thread, Google has announced a new Panda refresh, making this version number 24.

This refresh has a noticeable impact 1.2% of English based queries according to Google.

The previous update was Panda 23 on December 21, 2012 and it impacted 1.3% of English queries . Prior to that was a refresh on November 21st that impacted 0.8% of queries. It seems like Google is now rolling out these updates every 4 weeks or so.

Last week there were many threads in forums regarding algorithm update, which Google denied.

 

 

Source: SEL

SEO is Dead – Infographics

SEO is Dead?

Whenever a new algorithm updates comes from Google, most of the webmasters says, “SEO is Dead“. Do you really think SEO is Dead? Lets have look an Infographic by SEOBook. From my point of view SEO will never die. SEO will be forever.

 

SEO is not just about increasing SERP rank in Google, its something who can get good traffic to your site. Day by Day SEO is improving, Search Engines are now just improving their search results and making SEO a difficult task.

death of seo

Google Algorithm updates in 2012 (Infographics)

Algorithm updates

Google Search Algorithm Changes 2012

In 2012 we saw many updates from Google in their algorithms. Some of algorithms were very hilarious, when most of the webmasters thought SEO is now dead, but still SEO is there. The only way to stay in field of SEO is to update yourself with all the updates and latest trends of Google.
Lets have a look on all the Google algorithm updates from January 2012 to December 2012.

Infographic Credit: e2msolutions

Most Common SEO Myths

When it comes to SEO, there are several myths for doing SEO. The most common myths nowadays we can see online are:

• SEO is Dead
• SEO is Spam
• Everyone Can do SEO
• Buying Links or Social Signals Will Make My Pages Rank Better
• The More Links I Have, the Better
• Good Content Will Guarantee My Pages Rank Well
• Google penalized my site
• PageRank is the Only Metric That Matters
• Using Google Analytics Allows Google to Spy on Me
• SEO is a “Paint by Numbers” Solution

Let’s have a detailed looked on all the Myths

Top SEO Myths

Myth #1: SEO is Dead

Sorry, nope. Every time a new Google algorithm change rolls around, industry “experts” sound the death knell for the entire search engine optimization field. However, the fact that people continue to have success manipulating given site variables in order to improve their natural search rankings conclusively proves that this isn’t the case.
SEO strategy might change from time to time, but it certainly can’t be considered “dead” by any stretch of the imagination.

Myth #2: SEO is Spam

After the common “SEO is dead” myth, we can also see plenty of people calling out SEO as being black hat spammers, as if there are no legitimate SEO tactics that fall within Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. But we can see that Google always updates there guidelines also whenever there is a need, here is a full detail of Google Webmaster Guidelines.
There are also techniques that fall under this negative umbrella, but plenty of the best SEO tactics also look a lot like proper website management—with or without rankings optimization as a primary purpose.
Writing good web content, a good user friendly web design, participating fully on social media sites, and building relationships with potential linking partners are all things that any website owner should be doing to grow his brand, dispelling the notion that SEO tactics only represent shady dealings.

Myth #3: Anyone Can Do SEO

Another myth in SEO is that, anyone can learn and do SEO, but the fact is that until a advanced training and proper guidance and practice is provided , not everyone can do SEO effectively. Beside guidance, training and practice there are also other facts which requires to become an SEO expert like presence sense of mind to determine the Google’s algorithms.
Basically, what I’m trying to get at is that there’s a big difference between working with an experienced, qualified SEO professional and passing off your company’s SEO needs to an IT worker, simply because he works with computers. SEO best practices take time to understand and develop, meaning that you should proceed with caution whenever passing off these needs to a potentially unqualified source.

Myth #4: Buying Links or Social Signals Will Make My Pages Rank Better

There are plenty of websites out there selling you fake Facebook “Likes” or packs of “10,000 backlinks for $10.”  And while their website copy may be compelling, these programs do not represent a viable alternative to true SEO.
At best, purchasing these packages will give you a temporary, undeserved boost in your website’s search result rankings. But a far more likely scenario is that they’ll wind up being swiftly devalued (if not outright penalized) by Google and the other search engines, making them a potentially dangerous waste of money that should be avoided in favor of legitimate SEO best practices.
It’s you who have decide whether you want high ranking on Search Engines for a long term or for just 3-4 days or a week. Link buying sometimes can achieve some good ranking but it will not for long term and there is a maximum chance of penalty, Since we know that Google updates its algorithm more than 500 times in a year.

Myth #5: The More Links I Have, the Better

Think about this commonly-held myth for a second: If ranking well in the natural search results was simply a race to see who could acquire the most backlinks, the SERPs would look like a very different place!
So yes, the quantity of links pointing at your website does play a role in your site’s SEO equity, but there are also other factors. The most valuable is the relative quality of each of these backlinks. When combined with the hundreds of other variables that search algorithms weight to determine their rankings, it’s obvious that your total backlink volume plays only a small role in your site’s search success.

Myth #6: Good Content Will Guarantee My Pages Rank Well

As we all know and hear that Content is King. Although Google has been making plenty of noise about how much it values high-quality page content, let me be the first one to pop this bubble. While good content is important, but this single ranking variable isn’t enough on its own to guarantee high-search placements.
Believing this SEO myth is akin to taking an “if you build it, they will come” mentality on your website. Good content alone won’t catch the search engines’ eyes. After all, there are thousands upon thousands of sites out there boasting high value posts and articles.
Instead, this good content must be paired with other SEO ranking signals (like, for example, the quantity and quality of backlinks pointing to it, ON-Page SEO factors, etc) in order to improve its placement within the natural search results.

Myth #7: Google Penalized My Site

If you spend any amount of time in digital marketing forums, you’ve probably come across dozens of posts from people claiming that “Google penalized my site.”
Here’s the thing, though: Manual penalization by Google are exceedingly rare and are usually only executed in response to the most egregious of SEO violations. So, why the disconnect between the number of people who have seen diminished natural search results and the number of manual penalties that are actually given?
What most of these webmasters are seeing is actually Google’s devaluation of the SEO strategies that they’ve been using on their sites.  As an example, take Google’s action against blog networks, which devalued an entire backlink structure overnight. Sites that were using this technique saw their search rankings fall, but it wasn’t because they had been penalized. Instead, large portions of their backlink profiles had been devalued, causing their overall SEO equity to be lowered and their rankings to fall.
So, the next time you see a decrease in your natural search rankings, don’t be so quick to jump on the “Google penalized me” bandwagon. Nine times out of ten, you haven’t been singled out—your chosen SEO techniques have simply been devalued.
Google penalizes your site only when you disobey their Guidelines of Web design and development and the way you acquire backlinks

Myth #8: PageRank is the Only Metric That Matters

I’ve already mentioned in this article that Google considers hundreds of different ranking factors in its search algorithms,so why do so many SEOs get hung up on this one particular element?
Sure, it’s true that having a high PageRank used to matter more when it came to ranking well in the natural search results. And it’s also true that courting links from pages with higher PageRank can generate more link equity when pointed back to your website.
That said, being able to say that you have a PR3 homepage, rather than a PR1 homepage, matters very little in the grand scheme of things. There are plenty of other more important SEO metrics out there that deserve more of your attention than this single attribute.

Myth #9: Using Google Analytics Allows Google to Spy on Me

If I had a dollar for every conspiracy theorist SEO who told me that using Google Analytics allowed Google to “spy” on his website, well … I’d have at least enough money to the entire Single Grain team out for a night on the town.
Certainly, part of the issue is that so much of the world of SEO operates under speculation and secrecy. Since Google won’t (and shouldn’t) confirm which factors influence its ranking algorithms and to what degree, SEOs have to piece together their own understanding of the field. This can lead to speculation regarding correlations that don’t exist, as in the case of rankings going down around the same time as some key metric within Google Analytics.

Myth #10: SEO is a “Paint by Numbers” Solution

One final myth I’d like to resolve is the idea that SEO is a simple set of steps that, once learned, can be applied to any website of any size in any niche.
Clearly, if you give this idea a bit of thought, it’s obvious why it can’t be true. A website like Zappos needs to take different steps to improve its natural search performance than a small, “mom and pop” website in the home remodeling industry. Sure, each website might engage in similar tactics (for example, social media marketing and link building), but the way they’ll apply these practices means that their ideal SEO strategies will barely resemble one another.
As such, before planning out an SEO strategy for a given website, it’s important to understand both the site’s current optimization level and its relationship with others in the same industry. Only with effective competitor research and a thorough understanding of how SEO techniques should be best applied can you put this myth to rest once and for all!
You can also say that for all types of website you have to plan different strategy. For ex. E-Commerce site should be handled with some other strategy since this types of site contains lots of duplicate pages and other facts affecting SEO and for Static website there are other steps to be followed.

Have you heard of any other commonly held SEO myths?  If so, share your thoughts in the comments section below so that we can all set the record straight!

Source: SEJ

How SEO Will Change in 2013

Considering the shifts in SEO survival, 2012 has been quite an eventful year. There have been several important updates that have changed the search scenario altogether.

A massive penalty on spam sites through the EMD updates was not the only scathing step taken by Google, there are also other updates such as Penguin, etc. Google updates its algorithm over 500 times a year in order to improve their SERP page. Google will never stop its relentless run to make search results more relevant.

Search engine optimization, as it stands today, is no longer a cake walk. It has become quite challenging and innovative strategies are required to improve rankings.

So what is the preparation for SEO in 2013? The answer to this question is still vague, as people are not sure about the updates that are to occur in 2013. Fierce arguments are still raging regarding the Google updates that may take place. While some believe that the future lies in content marketing, making backlinks others believe that social media presence will be the key. Others continue to resort to blackhat SEO methods that may land them on Google’s hitlist.

Based on what I hear people saying and see people doing, and my understanding of the proposed Google updates that may take place, here is a list of major changes in SEO you can expect to occur in 2013.

Author Rank

How Google handles Author Rank can be the most gigantic venture element in 2013. It might turn the whole online world advertising globe upside down.

Google will allocate every blogger an Author Rank dependent upon diverse parameters for example specialty power and space aptitude. This Rank could be given a major part in standing the substance created by that creator. Basically talking, the higher the rank and notoriety of the creator, the higher are the shots of their substance standing well in web crawlers. In addition, a creator’s printed substance could be straight joined to their Google+ profile, accordingly drawing Google+ into SEO counts. Along these lines, with the mooted Author Rank redesign, exhibition of a destination will depend more upon the notoriety and corner aptitude of the substance’s creator in informal communities.

Equivalency Score Algorithm

A different major overhaul that is needed to occur in 2013 is the Google Equivalency Score Algorithm (ESA). ESA is wanted to work in the same course as Google Adword’s Quality Score where every catchphrase is given a focus score dependent upon some elements. The value score of the pivotal words is then utilized as well as the offer measure of the publicist and the advertisements are stacked up in like manner. ESA, if operationalized, will have an immense effect on connected markets. It will conclusively chop down the restraining infrastructure of certain web spaces on number one rankings and will make a more level playing field for all professions. One impact of this is that Google may presentation the same outcomes for a quest inquiry in diverse requests every time the effects show up on screen.

Link Disavow Tool

The Link Disavow Tool was made to gather information on the backlink structure of locales. Risks are that Google will utilize this device within 2013 to make a contrivance utilizing the connections that have as of now been submitted to them. The instrument could be utilized to upgrade reporting of spam locales and abject value backlinks. Therefore, blog entries and gathering posts can no longer be utilized to make backlinks.

Social media presence

SEO in 2013 could be greatly impacted by the various interpersonal organizations and the advancement and utilisation of an adequate social media presence. Locale holders and technicians need to cut a corner out for themselves in social media assuming that they need their destinations to do well in inquiry rankings. Imparting of substance on informal organizations like Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, Delicious, LinkedIn, MySpace and Google+ can be of the utmost significance. Social media prominence will, in a manner, choose the destiny of a locale the extent that Google is concerned.

The explanation Google gives such vitality to the social media presence of a locale is yet to be completely determined. At the same time there are numerous speculations over there noticing this. Social media presence is verification that the activity discovers the substance of a destination suitable. Be that as it may, numerous state that Google will do this to give its staggering Google+ a support. Numerous accept that in the days to come, Google+ may simply develop as the most vital informal organization for webmasters.

Rich Snippet

Google is now improving their search result through rich snippet markup language. New Data Highlighter tool has been introduced by Google webmaster to force user to use the this tool to add markup to their webpages.

Digital Marketing

Digital marketing will likewise play an important part in 2013. Digital marketing will inefficiently incorporate the whole range of connected showcasing from business-purposed substance creation, through pay-for each-click methodology, to utilize of social media. In light of certain needed Google overhauls, this will get a huge support and risks are that increasingly marks will go into the Digital marketing field in time.

No Fundamental Changes in SEO

Having began by illustrating how SEO will basically update in 2013, gave me a chance to close by declaring that the establishment of SEO is setting off to continue as before. If network managers and experts like it or not, substance will keep on as the lord on the web. Brilliant, well-composed, expertly showed, practically helpful substance will even now expect the key to remember standing well for target look terms. Any locale ought to have propelling and one of a kind substance that has great lucidness and furnishes a rich client experience. A large part of the pursuit fight is won if a web space takes after this cardinal govern, and that will just end up being more correct in 2013 and past.

Presently received connection constructing practices for example viral article submission and robotized connection posting won’t work any more, as the premise for them influencing indexed lists is uncovered as artifical. Google started the sturdy examination of backlinks in 2012, and this will keep on in 2013.

While we should hold up to see simply how Google and different scan mammoths actualize their techniques for 2013, it might be underestimated that their deliberations to keep list items naturally legit, correlated and handy to purchaser will have an effect on the industry that has advanced around internet searching tool advancement. If the impacts of that are

Source: sitepoint

Google updates webmaster tool with Data Highlighter

Google updated their webmaster tool with Data Highlighter and announced the launch of a new tool to help webmasters to create rich snippet markup (structured data) for their website’s pages. The tool is a point-and-click tool that lets a webmaster click on words or phrases and add elements of structure data to it without having to go into the code and add it to the HTML.

Google wants to show relevant and fresh updated content to their users and now they are pushing the website owners to add as much structured data to their sites as possible in order to improve and bring semantic in its search results and Knowledge Graph boxes with rich snippets like event listings, reviews and other information. However adding this kind of Microdata isn’t always easy for many small SEO or any other service providers don’t really have the expertise to add Microdata, Microformat or RDFa markup to their webpage and website

However,now you won’t have to fiddle with your code to report this data to Google. Google’ new Data Highlighter now offers a point-and-click tool for tagging your site to its specifications without having to touch any code.

For the time being, this tool is only available in English and only for structured data about events. Google promises to expand this project to other data types and languages in “the months ahead.”

Here is a statement from Google about Data Highlighter

event-data-highlighter

Data Highlighter is a point-and-click tool that can be used by anyone authorized for your site in Google Webmaster Tools. No changes to HTML code are required. Instead, you just use your mouse to highlight and “tag” each key piece of data on a typical event page of your website.

 

 

Here is a quick 1.34 secs video on quick start with Data Highlighter

This tool is very easy and simple to use but still I am not using this tool. Since it is currently available for Events markup and  I had a doubt what if I  use both  HTML markups for rich snippet and then also use this tool to add markup will Google will consider it or not. If Google will consider than which markup will be considered by Google. For this lets wait for another Google update.

What Are Digital Marketing Best Practices for Reporting?

Measuring how well you drive traffic and convert leads

 

As you might guess, we spend a lot of time making sure our digital marketing software supports reporting on key metrics – with white label of course! Why bother measuring and reporting? Well, to simplify the famous quote below, because to improve anything, you first have to measure it. We live that mantra here at Optify.

“Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.“
- H. James Harrington

What To Measure?

More to the point, we get questions often about what to measure. Good question! Deciding what to measure is just as important as measuring anything in digital marketing.  And you wouldn’t believe the number of times I hear or read about how important it is to measure followers, or friends, or tweets, or eyeballs, or . . . you get the picture.

But let’s talk business, because real metrics that drive business help land and keep clients on retainer-based services. Real business metrics justify marketing budgets and the undying support of the management team – at least until next month ☺.

Driving Traffic and Converting Leads

So we keep it simple around here for our own digital marketing: “Drive traffic and convert leads”.

In terms of inbound marketing, or marketing automation, or our blend of inbound + marketing automation (ie digital marketing software), it’s just as simple as measuring how well your clients or your site is driving traffic and converting leads.

Driving traffic metrics:

Month-over-month unique visitors, time on site, bounce rate trends (are you engaging your visitors?)
Month-over-month best referral sources for traffic, best ranking keywords, most visited pages, etc.
Converting leads metrics:

New leads per day, per week, or per month.
Best digital sources of leads month over month, best keywords for lead conversion.
Trends and Repeatable Tools Matter

There are more, but if you get started there, your clients and management teams will be mighty happy. A couple of little items:

You’ll notice “month-over-month” often above, because trending matters. These reports are all about trending, because very little in life or digital marketing improves overnight. It’s a journey. Your clients or sales teams will only rarely see more traffic or leads in days, but they might in just weeks, and 5-10% improvement monthly has a massive compounding value in a quarter or two. Remind your clients of that fact in terms of why want your services on retainer.
You need a plan and repeatable system to improve traffic or conversions. Find a tried & true, repeatable SEO and/or content strategy for you clients to drive traffic. Find a system that will measure it. Or really focus on multiple calls to action and/or many focused landing pages with tight messages aligned to specific campaigns to drive up conversions. Crank out those landing pages without coding the HTML, because time is not correlated to conversions, rather tight and focused messages are. I hear the cash register if you can keep it simple and repeatable. Can you say “cha-ching”?
Gotta go now to get this post off, or I’ll be looking over my shoulder all day tomorrow. Get those “drive traffic and convert” reports out fast too. Your internal and external clients will love them! Rob

Source: optify.net

Why Digital Marketing Agencies Are Booming and why your Brand need Digital Marketing

Does it appear to you that online and inbound marketing is moving rather quickly – like nearly light speed?
Let’s drift back in time in just one place – social media. Remember the “good old days” back in 2009 when, in terms of a mainstream marketer’s focus, solely Twitter and Facebook extremely mattered?
The number of social media channels to a minimum of think about trailing lately has fully grown to incorporate Google+ and YouTube. Don’t forget LinkedIn and also add Pinterest to the list. As you think about finding out and prioritizing your company’s social media channels alone, you begin to understand why a little suggestion or external expertise might be helpful.
Cue the digital marketing agency, a rapidly growing fact in digital marketing agency. If you elevate your head from your screen, you’ll begin seeing them everyplace.

Before you see what is the reason for booming of Digital Marketing Agencies look out What is Digital Marketing?

What are five reasons why digital marketing agencies are booming – but this list could easily grow by another 10 or 15 items.

1. Prioritization
Given the amount of various digital channels and ways rising, most firms don’t have resources to capture all of these programs.
An agency can look at specific objectives and help prioritize which channels to focus on. Since they generally have a methodology for evaluating many different client-types, prioritization of programs is an area where they are supporting more companies every week.

2. Specialization
Marketing is becoming like medicine: few generalists, a lot of specialists.
Marketing prior to web 2.0 was (relatively) easy. Programs were a short list including direct e-mail, print ads, events and if the budget was present, some “above-the-line” marketing campaigns like radio and television.
Today all the companies are looking at email, PPC, CPM, SEO, SEM, inbound marketing third party content, all social media channels, daily deals, webinars, infographics, ppt, etc. No one person can be the expert of all those digital marketing channels as the industry becomes more granular and specialist-driven.
In this environment, agencies can provide expertise for specific channels or create a program that is a rifle shot at a target market rather than a spray-and-pray shotgun blast.

3. Globalization/Localization
Competition today is coming in all shapes, sizes, and locations.
Before the Internet era, competition was often right across the street and it was limited. Today, competition is no longer restricted to location.
A given company might be fighting a global competitor focusing on localized search in their home metro area or region, or want to get to their competitor’s home turf.
Agencies, because they work with multiple clients, have the ability to keep their knowledge current and competitive tactics razor sharp. These quick-witted skills are increasingly valued, because in today’s industry, a company is either the predator or the prey.

4. Long Tail
The abundance of low cost SaaS(Software as a Service) solutions and “cheap” infrastructure price makes the barrier to entry fairly low for small new agencies. That generally means a local agency with a very low cost structure.
As an example, some agencies provide digital marketing managed services to a small chain of nail salons or a towing company. They do so within a cost envelope to compete with replacing yellow pages ads.
The term “digital marketing agency” no longer applies to just the big guys like WPP or Publicis. There are local agencies today which can meet the needs of small businesses within nearly any budget.

5. Metrics
With larger selling pay planning to digital per annum, additional scrutiny from higher than can inherently go with it.
Agencies commonly are captivated added answerable for specific after-effects in allegory to centralized business departments. As a result, they about accept added constant metrics and advertisement paradigms to ads measurement programs and absolve account commitments. That’s mighty valuable to the VP of Marketing/CMO who wants an accomplice in those negotiations with the CFO.

4 Reasons You Might Need an Agency

Here are four specific reasons why an digital agency might be of help to you and your marketing department.

1. You’re a marketing athlete – what we call an “I wear a lot of hats” marketer. But you may want to have a digital agency partner that can put more focus on a specific program or two while you play general contractor. Social media programs and content generation or link building are some areas where an agency can focus while still tying into your overall SEO/SEM strategy.
2. Have you ever hired a full-time employee for a specific need and then realized six months later that you really just needed that one project done and now you’re stuck with an underutilized, bored resource? A project like site redesign, SEO revamp, or targeted social media campaign lasting six months or less is a great place to slot in an agency for targeted support that can be wound down when the project is complete.
3. These days, you most likely hear or examine a program a minimum of a handful of times a month that you simply would think about testing if the information measure and experience was accessible. it would be one thing like attachment along associate email campaign to a selected soft-ask on a custom-made landing page, or data processing some paid placements with hyperbolic activity on a selected social media channel. you must be ready to realize place of work with the particular experience you wish to run associate experiment among a timeline and budget envelope that meets your necessities.
4. Usually marketers square measure hierarchical simply on a selected result like leads per quarter or traffic numbers. The chief team and corporate executive might not care however you come through those results. Reckoning on your internal staffing, it should be easier to manage to your targeted results however let place of work produce a group of interlinking campaigns to realize your results. During this method, you get the digital marketing agency’s specific experience tied with the results you wish internally whereas conserving a number of sometime, since less of your toil is needed.

Regardless of whether you decide to work with an agency now or in the future, get used to them. Given the pace of change in online and digital marketing, agencies will only grow in numbers and services they provide to their clients.